BCTalent – Let’s bridge the talent gap together

Not my usual post, but in my opinion, one of the more important ones. I’d like to bring some attention on one of the Microsoft Programs, namely …

the #BCTalent program

The goal of the program:

Bring more people to our wonderful community.  And if you’re a partner, I think you can agree with me that finding new people is hard – let alone training unexperienced people and getting them going in our industry is not easy either!

That’s where this program comes in!  We need more talent, and this program is about:

Bridging the Talent Gap Together

It has been quite active – in fact, it exists for quite exactly a year now under the form of a first program: the “Reskill” program.  But more is coming, like the Cross-skill program (of individuals already experienced in delivering business applications) and the Upskill program (to kick-start recent graduates).  Very interesting, especially because it’s coordinated by Microsoft, and the economics of scale makes it interesting for all partners!

The Reskill program

Yep, this has been running for a year now, and already has brought hundreds of new individuals in already 16 countries to our community: mostly functional consultants, but also some developers are in the program.  The idea is that we find people (optionally, Microsoft can even assist in recruitment) from outside the Business Central ecosystem (only that way, we grow our community), and skill and train them.  So, by joining the program, your new hires will benefit from product & professional skills training provided by real experts, including even also personalized coaching!

Interesting?  You can sign up today!

We did!

We did sign up – in more ways than one ;-).

First of all, we did enroll a few of our “new hires” in this program, so they got benefit from the coaching, the training, the experts and such.  All young people, finding their way in the Business Central consultancy.  You could say: we’re shaping the next generation ;-).  In fact, there is a story about them online already ;-).

All of which are now active in the field.  And .. they continue to be coached by Microsoft.  We’re in IT. Continuous learning is key, isn’t it ;-).

Another way we contribute, is me personally by providing some sessions about a range of topics.  I already did one about “Troubleshooting”, and I’ll do some more in the near future ;-).  Which proudly makes me part of the #bctalent team 😉.

Some numbers from other partners

I also got to some feedback from other partners, and it turns out the program is doing really well.

95% of the people stick with the program, stick with Business Central.  On top of that, almost 1 out of 3 partners have already come back to consume more program services: recruiting and training additional people after their first engagement.  Also, after  4-6 months the candidates are already good to go into the field, and contribute alonside the experienced people in the company.

You want to know more?

Well – you happen to be at DirectionsEMEA?  Kurt Juvyns – the heart and soul of this program (and a very good friend going back a LONG time) – will have a session on the 6th of November (first day) at 2pm in room 3.29+3.30.

Kurt also shares quite some info on LinkedIn, which you can find here: Activity | Kurt Juvyns | LinkedIn

And – as you might have expected, there’s an “aka” link: https://aka.ms/bctalent

One more thing …

You might or might not know, but my wife is my colleague, and – I kid you not – one of the best consultants and knowledgeable people I know in terms of Business Central.  We had the opportunity to be a bit more in the spotlight as a “BC Couple” – and share why we do what we do.  The interview was summarized into 3 videos, which you can find here.

Here are the individual videos.. 🙈: